Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority based on an application filed in France on 7/31/2023. It is noted, however, that applicant has not filed a certified copy of the FR2308271 application as required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim 1, 3, 10 - 11, 13 - 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Sathya et al. (EP3512232A1; which has been provided in the International Search Report).
Regarding claim 1, Sathya discloses a decision-making assist method for a user of a first terminal receiving a communication request originating from a second terminal (
[0038], line 8+ discloses “In particular embodiments, the first computing device 101A may discover a second computing device 101B associated with a second user in proximity using a wireless discovery protocol such as a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) discovery protocol. The first computing device 101A may discover the second computing device 101B to establish an offline communication session. “;
[0038], line28+ discloses: “In particular embodiments, the first computing device 101A may discover only computing devices in proximity that express interests in communicating with the first computing device 101A on a particular topic.”; wherein expressing interest inherently means communicating with the 1st terminal;
[0039], line 2+ discloses “In particular embodiments, the first computing device 101A may determine a second computing device 101B as a communication peer at step 310.),
the user of the second terminal still not having transmitted any communication request to the user of the first terminal ([0039], lines 2 – 5 disclose “In particular embodiments, the first computing device 101A may determine a second computing device 101B as a communication peer at step 310‘; wherein if a peer, then a previous communication record is available and if not a peer, no previous record of communication is available; [0039], lines 11 – 29 discloses using a threshold for the trust score before any communication is started. Further, lines 27 – 29 disclose looking up records to determine whether the 2nd terminal has been a communication peer. Hence, from the above, it is inherent that some users won’t have previous communication),
the method comprising:
determining a trust score of the user of the second terminal and a trust deviation, the trust deviation providing information on a reliability of the trust score ([0039], line 5+ discloses “In particular embodiments, the first computing device 101A may determine an initial trust score for the second computing device 101B at step 320. The trust score for the second computing device 101B on the first computing device 101A may indicate a degree of trustworthiness of the second computing device 101B from the first computing device 101A perspective”; wherein the trust deviation is the degree of trustworthiness),
the trust score and the trust deviation being determined from a list comprising at least one user (31, 34, 37) of a third terminal to which the second terminal has already transmitted a communication request ([0040], lines 32 – 33 discloses “The second user associated with the second computing device is a colleague of the third user”; wherein “a third terminal to which the second terminal has already transmitted a communication request” would be equivalent to “colleague of the 3rd user”; [0040], lines 21 – 24 discloses “In particular embodiments, the first computing device 101A may receive a trust score value for the second computing device 101B from a third computing device 101C.”),
the at least one user (31, 34, 37) of the third terminal belonging to at least one user community (C1, C2, C4) ([0056], lines 3 – 6 discloses “As an example and not by way of limitation, the items and objects may include groups or social networks to which users of social-networking system 660 may belong ….. “; [0063], lines 49 - 54).
Regarding claim 3, Sathya discloses the determination of the trust score and of the trust deviation comprises selecting at least one pair ([31, 34], [31, 37], [34, 37]) of users in the list ([0040], lines 32 – 33 discloses “The second user associated with the second computing device is a colleague of the third user”; wherein “a third terminal to which the second terminal has already transmitted a communication request” would be equivalent to “colleague of the 3rd user”; [0040], lines 21 – 24 discloses “In particular embodiments, the first computing device 101A may receive a trust score value for the second computing device 101B from a third computing device 101C.”).
Claim 10 is similarly analyzed as claim 1, with claim 10 reciting equivalent apparatus limitations. Computing device and base shown Fig. 8 (processor 802, system 800).
Regarding claim 11, Sathya discloses the computing device is adapted to transmit the trust score and the trust deviation to the first terminal ([0040], lines 21 – 24 discloses “In particular embodiments, the first computing device 101A may receive a trust score value for the second computing device 101B from a third computing device 101C.”; wherein receiving implies sender transmitting).
Regarding claim 13, Sathya discloses a processing circuit comprising a processor and a memory, the memory storing program code instructions of a computer program to execute the decision-making assist method according to claim 1, when the computer program is executed by the processor (Fig. 8, elements 802, 804; [0070]).
Regarding claim 14, Sathya discloses A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium on which a computer program is recorded comprising program code instructions for execution of the decision-making assist method according to claim 1, when the computer program is executed by a processor (Fig. 8, elements 802, 804; [0070]).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 2, 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sathya et al. (EP3512232A1; which has been provided in the International Search Report).
Regarding claim 2, Sathya discloses the 2nd user interacting with a 3rd user and receiving a trust score for the 2nd user from the 3rd user. ([0040], lines 2 1- 24, 32 – 33).
Sathya does not disclose the 2nd user interacting with multiple other users i.e. the list comprises three users (31, 34, 37) of respectively three terminals to which the second terminal has already transmitted a communication request.
However, Sathya discloses users are part of a group ([0056], lines 3 – 6). Hence, this implies that the 2nd user will have interacted with other users and hence the list can comprise multiple users, including 3 users.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to have the list contain multiple users that the 2nd user would have communicated with, since this improves the trust score compared to having only one user that the 2nd user would have communicated with.
Regarding claim 12, Sathya doesn not explicitly disclose the system comprises an application server, the application server being able to process the trust score and the trust deviation and to send the result of the processing to the first terminal.
However, Satya discloses (Fig. 6), a social networking system 660 having server 662. Satya ([0054], lines 53+, 26+) discloses the social networking system 660 may store social networking data related to the social network.
Hence, one of ordinary skill in the art can store the trust score and the trust deviation in the server and have the server send it to a user, when needed.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to have the server store trust scores and deviation, as this would allow one network entity to centrally organize and store all data and send it to users as needed.
Claims 8 - 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sathya et al. (EP3512232A1) in view of Chung et al. (US 20130291098 A1) (which have been provided in the International Search Report).
Regarding claim 8, Sathya does not disclose the trust score corresponds to a cardinality of a union of user communities to which the three users of the list belong.
In the same field of endeavor, however, Chung discloses the trust score corresponds to a cardinality of a union of user communities to which the three users of the list belong ([0090]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to use the method, as disclosed by Chung, in the system of Sathya because using more users would help improve the trust score, as is obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art.
Regarding claim 9, Sathya does not disclose he trust deviation corresponds to the trust score from which is subtracted an average of the cardinalities of unions of the user communities to which the three users of the list belong.
In the same field of endeavor, however, Chung discloses he trust deviation corresponds to the trust score from which is subtracted an average of the cardinalities of unions of the user communities to which the three users of the list belong ([0099]; [0103], Equation (4) numerator discloses subtraction; multiple connections N).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to use the method, as disclosed by Chung, in the system of Sathya because this allows the deviation/standard deviation/variance of the trust score to be calculated, which indicates the reliability of the score, as is well known to one of ordinary skill in the art.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4 – 7 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Other Prior Art Cited
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to the applicant’s disclosure.
The following patents/publications are cited to further show the state of the art with respect to trusting users in social networks:
Thomas et al. (US 12423429 B2) discloses Dynamic Data Filtering Based on Trust Score Within Service Mesh.
Li et al. (US 20240297891 A1) discloses Systems and Methods for Measuring Trust.
Yan (US 20210160056 A1) discloses Method and Apparatus for Decentralized Trust Evaluation in A Distributed Network.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ADOLF DSOUZA whose telephone number is (571)272-1043. The examiner can normally be reached Mon - Fri 9 AM - 5 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Chieh M Fan can be reached at 571-272-3042. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ADOLF DSOUZA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2632
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